What they signify according to the letter has been said (q. 7); what [they signify] as to morals has been touched [on] somewhat in the preceding (q. 8). Now [it] is to be set forth what they signify allegorically. Theodoret, therefore (q. 1): “The twelve men, and the same number of stones,” he says, “designated the Choir [company] of the Apostles.”—
(col. 489 — left column; printed “496”)
—[the Choir] of the Apostles. The same were [both] the workmen and the foundations. We have already heard Jerome above (quaest. 6) saying [that] those twelve stones made firm the twelve foundations of the Apostles. But upon Amos the Prophet (ch. 4) [Jerome says]: “As that sun which we behold completes [its] annual course — until it return to [its] former goal — in twelve months, which severally roll [round] in thirty days each; and the moon, which in Hebrew is called ירח [yerach], in Greek μήν [mēn], has, in each language, given [its] name to the months from its own name, and is illumined by the sun’s rays from that part which is near to it, receiving more or less light according to the variety of the seasons — so also the Church, adorned with the splendor of the true Sun, fills up the twelve number of the Apostles.” Whence also [there] are called twelve tribes in Israel; and, for a testimony of eternal memory, twelve stones are taken from the channel of the Jordan, to be placed in the place of the second circumcision. But Tertullian, when — as was shown [at] the same quaest. 6 — he had said [that] those twelve stones [were] stored in the ark, subjoined: “For just so many Apostles were portended; and accordingly [it was] as [with] the stones — [men] of solid faith, whom the true JESUS chose out of the laver [font] of the Jordan, and received into the sanctuary of his testament.” And this very type I already long ago noted [in my] book On the Apostles (num. 10). But [it is] to be observed [that] the holy Apostles [are] signified both through the twelve men who [took up] those stones — yet by a different aspect. First: they [the Apostles] were truly men, most valiant in strength of soul and might. For to them chiefly pertains that [passage] (Rom. 8 v. 35): “Who shall separate us from the love of CHRIST? tribulation? or distress? or famine? or nakedness? or peril? or persecution? or the sword? (as [it] is written: For thy sake we are put to death all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter?) But in all these [things] we overcome, because of him who loved us. For I am certain that neither death, nor life, nor Angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor [things] present, nor [things] to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in CHRIST JESUS our Lord.” Then: they are chosen out of the whole number of the tribes of Israel, and applied by Joshua to this work. And [were] not the Apostles similarly chosen, and bidden by the true Joshua to give [their] labor to taking up stones from the Jordan and fixing [them] elsewhere? Thirdly: the stones which they had to take up — what else are they than the whole race of mortals, who not rarely are marked by the name and figure of the twelve tribes, as [in] Matt. 19? For truly these were covered by the flowing waters of this world, and in the deep channel, under the eddies, received either no heavenly—
(col. 489, lower)
—sun’s rays, or [received them] only cooled, wet, and — as the opinion of the opticians is wont to speak — refracted, if indeed they kept the law of nature itself, or of Moses. The Lord checks the waters; the sun looks upon those stones; the Apostles set [their] hands to them; they grasp them, lay [them] on [their] shoulders, and carry [them] onto the dry [land]. Nay, are not men often stony? — by the ferocity and barbarity of [their] morals, and hardest in the very stubbornness of [their] breast, [and] most heavily [laden] by the multitude and magnitude of [their] crimes. Fourthly: and whither do they carry them? Thither, where the camp of the Lord is; where the Church of CHRIST JESUS [is]; where the sacraments are performed, sacrifices offered, feast-days kept; where [there is] a most-safe dwelling against all enemies, the presence and nearness of the Lord’s ark, most-commodious to the people of God — [there] for a while,—
(col. 490 — right column; printed “497”)
—until [each] enter [his] inheritance, [that is, the] station [halt]. Fifth: but by what manner do they carry [them]? On [their] shoulders, and over a long enough space. [There] was labor and sweat. But [it] behooved [them] to imitate the Lord, who — seeking and finding the lost sheep — carries [it] back on [his] shoulders into the fold, and reckons not the labor equal to [his] love. What? Would some blind man in the Greek Anthology gladly carry on [his] shoulders a lame [man] sound of eyes — and would an Apostle, sound of eyes and feet, not gladly carry a blind and lame [man], so as to profit him and give [him] the happy land? In the Poet, Aeneas says to his [father] Anchises, [asking him] to snatch him from the flames of Troy — as was said in the earlier part of this chapter, quaest. 3:
“Come then, dear Father, mount upon our neck; I myself will bear [you] on my shoulders, nor will this labor weigh me down.” [Aen. 2.707–708]
—and would any labor weigh down an Apostle, while mortals are to be snatched from the flames of hell, or lifted up out of the Jordan — that is, out of the torrent of the swiftest judgment? For we know the Lord’s sentence (John 3 v. 18): “He who does not believe is already judged.” In our age, the Apostle Blessed Father Xavier, before he set out for those parts of Japan and India — nay, [in order] that he might set out — was divinely admonished by a vision, when he seemed to lift onto his shoulders an Indian man — very heavy indeed and most burdensome, but for whom that carrying [was] necessary unto eternal felicity — as [it stands] in the Life of Blessed Father Ignatius (bk. 2 ch. 16), in Ribadeneira. Sixth: since, therefore, the Apostles established Churches in all parts of the world, then they [also] set stones — which would be the most illustrious monuments of the divine benefits toward us; which would set the true Joshua, the true crossing through the Jordan, and the true entry into the true land of promise, before the sight of all nations, and would rouse the true Israelites to fear, worship, and praise. Seventh: and although both time and the wickedness of men have thrown down some of those rocks or Churches, yet the Roman [Church] stands — which, [with] the necks of St. Peter and St. Paul set under [it], [the Apostles] set down out of the Jordan of Paganism onto that plain of Jericho — that is, into the land which was then the true Jericho of the whole world; into the noblest, most opulent city of the whole world, most fruitful of all pleasantnesses and delights [i.e. Rome]. And, lest [it] ever be disturbed by any length of time, by the crime of men, or by [any] tempest, they founded [it] most deeply, fixed [it] most wisely, and made [it] firm and fortified [it] most steadfastly. And, this [Church] standing, [there] stand in it — and through it, in a manner — the others [too]. Certainly the memory [of it] never perished. Deservedly, in honor of the Apostles, Constantine the Great, while he raised the Vatican basilica to the honor of St. Peter, himself carried away on his own shoulders twelve baskets of earth — as we read on the 18th day of November — since that holy Apostle [Peter] had carried the city, and thereby so many and so great nations of the Roman Empire, [like] a huge rock, with the greatest labor and at last with his own blood poured out, so far out of the mud of the Gentiles’ superstitions and vices, into the Elysian fields of the heavenly and blessed land. But of this [let it be] enough. Some indeed — as [Lorichius] Hadamarius — take the twelve rocks which these twelve carried [as] the twelve articles of the Creed, which the same [Apostles] composed. Nor do I gainsay [it]. But of that I refer [the reader] to num. 57 of [my] booklet On the Apostles; and I go on further to say—
(col. 491 — left column; printed “498”)
—[in] what manner the same Apostles were these twelve rocks. First: they are the foundations of the Christian Church — which is the house of God, and the pillar of truth (1 Tim. 3) — [as] Eph. 2 & Apoc. 21 v. 19. Then: against all the enticements of pleasures, all the blows of striking fortune, [and] all the assaults of raging tyrants, they are most hard [firm]. Thirdly: by no wind of temptations, by no man’s wickedness or force, can they ever be torn away or cast down. Fourthly: they were in the Jordan itself — because they were in the world, and their chief [men were] fishermen too. Fifthly: they are witnesses of all Christ’s merits toward us, and of the miracles which he wrought, in the whole world, among all Gentiles, and men of every kind and order. Sixthly: in the inheritance of the promised felicity they, first of all, were fixed and fastened by the true Joshua. Seventhly: they were nearest around the sacred tabernacle and the ark of the Lord — around CHRIST the Lord, I mean, who was the tabernacle of the divinity, [and] the ark by far the most holy of all. Eighthly: by their sight and admonition, who would not come to a recollection of the divine—
(col. 492 — right column; printed “499”)
—beneficence, mercy, and kindness toward us? Ninthly: their head and chief is Petra [the Rock] — or, what means the same, Peter. Tenthly: nay, the supreme head both of them, and of that head [Peter] itself — and the Lord — [is] the spiritual rock (1 Cor. 10), the living stone, supreme, angular [the cornerstone], chosen, precious (1 Peter 2 v. 4 & 6): CHRIST JESUS. And we ought to be built up upon him, and with them, as living stones [1 Peter 2:5]; nay, [we ought] also to imitate them in this — that we carry stones: namely, by dragging others to the Church (even rude, gross, vile [ones], harsh and hard toward virtue, stubborn and obstinate in vices); and by exercising ourselves with certain honest labors and works of piety; and by patiently and bravely carrying our cross. [Thou] who, on thy most sacred shoulders, O CHRIST JESUS, didst carry thy [cross], [and] first of all didst cross this Jordan, and didst bear the immense stone of the most bitter and most heavy sufferings — help, I beseech [thee], my weakness. So, O Lord JESUS, help [me].